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My last HD with a working Windows XP, VB6 and DirectX 8.1 recently crashed while trying to make more backup HDs, and all other backup HDs with Windows XP were lost due to fire. The VB6 software took me years to write and debug, so I do not want to start afresh with VB.net, especially as the ease of code-a-little-test-a-little development for DirectX and COM interactions has still not caught up with VB6.

Before I buy a new dedicated Windows 10 desktop and attempt to recreate the old environment via virtualization as a replacement, I want to make sure that I buy hardware that will support VB6/DirectX 8. Therefore my question to the community:

Has anybody been successful with installing Windows XP, VB6, and the DirectX 8.1 development environment on Windows 10 via Hyper-V or some other virtualization kit?
If yes, what graphics hardware supports the DirectX 8 drivers?

Thank you for your help!

What I have tried:

I have installed Hyper-V on my laptop, but the remaining local storage is too small to try installing windows XP, vb6 and DirectX 8.1. I therefore will buy a desktop with sufficient storage and retry the installation there. I read a lot about Windows XP with Virtualization and installing VB6 on it, but nothing about VB6 and DirectX 8.1, and therefore I am reluctant to buy a hardware configuration that may not support VB6 and DirectX 8.
Posted
Updated 5-Aug-19 3:18am

Think about it: if you setup a VM on your Win10 machine, you can directly load XP and all the related dev environment on that, and it will work as if it was your original machine (only probably faster as it's likely to have more RAM available, and a much faster processor).

It's very unlikely that anyone has: VB6 was discontinued nearly 20 years ago! But it's pretty irrelevant if anyone has tried that - and pretty unlikely - that anyone has if you don't actually need to try!
 
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Quote:
as the ease of code-a-little-test-a-little development for DirectX and COM interactions has still not caught up with VB6.

You have that backwards. VB6 hasn't, and never will, catch up with DirectX and COM.

Quote:
I want to make sure that I buy hardware that will support VB6/DirectX 8.

This is also backwards. The hardware is really never a consideration when it comes to VB6 and DirectX. The problem is going to be Windows. You can get VB6 to work on Windows, just don't expect a smooth ride to get there. The old VB6 world was left behind quite a long time ago.

DirectX 8.1 compatibility shouldn't be a problem today, but don't count on that being the case in the future.

By not moving up to a modern language, you're just delaying the inevitable and you can only delay that so long. If you want to keep this app around, you WILL end up rewriting it.
 
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